I found this web page and cited a portion of it below. Maybe everybody but me already knew this but I found it intereting.
Neal Van Milligen ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ http://www.nf-2000.org/secure/Fair/F484.htm Experiments were carried out in order to compare the atomisation quality of rapeseed oil and rapeseed oil/alcohol with that of a conventional fossil fuel such as diesel oil and to compare performances in terms of soot formation and burnout along the flames for all fuels. First of all the stability of the rapeseed oil with the temperature was checked by thermogravimetry analysis and it comes out that this oil is very stable up to 300¡C in inert conditions and up to 200¡C under an oxidative atmosphere. Due to this stability with the temperature it is possible to preheat the oil up to 150¡C where it attains the same viscosity as the diesel oil. Atomisation tests showed that at 150¡C the performance of the rapeseed oil are comparable with that of the diesel oil. The overall combustion performance of the rapeseed oil are very satisfactory in comparison with the diesel fuel while the rapeseed oil produces almost 40 % less soot than diesel fuel. The different volatility of this fuel respect to the diesel fuel is responsible of the different behaviour of the sampled gas concentrations in the base of the flames while at the end of the flames, both attain almost the same values. It has been established that an addition of 9 % of ethyl alcohol (95 %) bring a great benefit regarding the pre-heating oil temperature. In fact, the presence of alcohol allows a reduction in the inlet oil temperature from 150 ¡C to 80 ¡C. Moreover, the combustion of the emulsion produces less soot and, at the exhaust, the amount is almost one half less than that produced by the combustion of rapeseed oil. It should be interesting to investigate more carefully the morphology of the rapeseed oil soot because of its higher reactivity toward oxidation shown by using TG analysis that can be correlated to higher hydrogen content. Generally all measured operating characteristics power, torque, fuel consumption and efficiency prove, that when using these novel fuels there are only slight power and consumption disadvantages in comparison to Diesel fuel. Only with coconut and palm kernel oil methylester were the operating characteristics definitely worse, while soybean oil methylester is placed between the two groups. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Tiny Wireless Camera under $80! Order Now! FREE VCR Commander! Click Here - Only 1 Day Left! http://us.click.yahoo.com/WoOlbB/7.PDAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/